maria josé

She is a 67-year-old cleaning lady who has been working as such all her life.

Her daily routine involves going to her fixed job as a maid and earning some extra money as a daily cleaning person at multiple places.

In between her work shifts, Maria José spends her spare time taking care of her dog and getting things done at her place. She also loves spending time with her daughter and granddaughter.

the context

The informal settlement where Maria José , who also attends for Zeza, lives is an informal settlement called Planalto Universo. It is located in the Airport neighborhood, at the heart of the city.

This settlement started as a formal social housing project developed by the city in 2007 to shelter families that were living in an informal settlement nearby the airport, which was classified as a risk area since the families were living around the Opaia lagoon. Zeza was one of the relocated families.

The city developed this 640-apartment project, which ended up being too large for the relocated families from the Opaia Lagoon, so the city decided to bring people from a different informal settlement to the same apartment project.

Those outsiders were discovered to be involved in drug trafficking, which brought a bad place stigma to the complex. After 5 years, the city was not giving the families any type of support and has left the community by itself. Apartments started to be sold illegally, and people started to self-build infills, since now the city was not paying attention to them anymore.

According to Maria José, this community is now a mixture of the good and the bad. Some people stayed in the social housing complex, and others decided to leave after the neighborhood had taken a turn to the unsafe side.

Maria José and her family decided to stay.